Celebrity prank call

Soundboard prank call

A soundboard prank call is a type of prank call that uses a soundboard. The caller uses the soundboard to imitate a celebrity or other well known person and the individual on the other end of the phone thinks they are actually talking to a real person.

The soundboard prank call craze begin when fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger's films created soundboards, featuring sound bites of his film dialogue. An unknown prank caller took to using this soundboard to call individuals pretending to be Detective John Kimble, his character from the feature film Kindergarten Cop.

In 2007, The Jackulator 9000 prank calls came to prominence on the Internet. The soundboard features over 11,000 voice clips uttered by characters Jack Nicholson has played in films, such as Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in the film A Few Good Men. Sometimes the calls present themselves as being made by the character from the film. Due to the sheer size of the soundboard, many different phrases can be used and human-like responses appear to be simple to create, which often makes the victim believe they are genuinely speaking to a real person, despite Nicholson's distinctive voice. This makes The Jackulator 9000 calls more appealing than smaller scale soundboards featured on websites such as eBaumsworld, and therefore they have proved to be hugely popular.

Victims

After the success of the celebrity soundboards, new "Victim Soundboards" started appearing on the internet, featuring victims from various celebrity prank calls. These boards made it easier for the pranker to prank someone, without risking the victim recognizing the voice. Sometimes, the victim would be called by their own voice, however, many times, they do not recognise it as their own. Another variation on this is the victim of a victim where sound clips from a victim soundboard call are used to create another soundboard. This process can keep going for a period of time, and can be used as an example of the domino effect.